1960s Timeline

June 30, 1962 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a no-hitter tonight and struck out 13 batters in turning back the New York Mets, 5-0. The no-hitter was the first in the National League this season. It was the 39th time that Koufax, a left-hander, had struck out 10 or more batters in a game. Koufax walked five. The Dodgers, who had scored four times in the first inning, increased their lead in the seventh on a home run by Frank Howard. Koufax needed only nine p

June 28, 1962 - Following the Dodgers’ 5-4 victory over the Mets this evening in a 13-inning game at the Chavez Ravine Stadium in Los Angeles, Dodger center fielder Willie Davis (pictured) was fined $25 as a “reprimand for losing his temper.” Davis, angered at a third strike called against him in the sixth inning, hurled his bat at the Dodger dugout along the third-base line. The bat skipped over the top of the dugout, grazed a second-row patron in the left temple, and droppe

June 28, 1962 - The New York Mets, who have no past and are dismally bogged down in the present, invested a substantial sum in the future today by signing Ed Kranepool (right), a 17-year-old first baseman from James Monroe High School in the Bronx. Kranepool received a bonus estimated to be $75,000. Kranepool, a 6-foot-3-inch, 205-pound left-hander, is expected to join the Mets in Los Angeles today to begin a cram course under the expert guidance of Gil Hodges, the Mets’ slic

June 27, 1962 - A single over third base by Bob Skinner in the tenth inning gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 6-5 victory over the Mets today in a taut, 3-hour contest at Forbes Field. Eclipsed were fine Met performances: a strong effort by Roger Craig (right), the losing pitcher; Richie Ashburn’s 2,500th base hit; and Frank Thomas’s 14th home run. Ashburn became the 39th major leaguer to make 2,500 or more hits. He was on base with No. 2,501, a single (as was No. 2,500), when Th

June 22, 1962 - When the Mets are good, they are a delightful surprise. But when they are bad, they are horrid. Both of the team’s schizophrenic faces were on display as it split a twilight-night doubleheader with the Houston Colt .45’s at the Polo Grounds today before 11,484 spectators. In the first game, Al Jackson, a 26-year-old left-hander, pitched his (and the Mets’) second shutout of the year. It was a taut, well-played one-hitter. The final score was 2-0. In the second

June 16, 1962 - New York Met fans, undeterred by a miserable record (16-42), spent another unrewarding afternoon under Coogan’s Bluff today while their team lost a 6-3 game to the Chicago Cubs. It started out happily enough. At noon, the fans took pictures of their heroes (this was the club’s first official “Camera Day”). At 2:30, they saw the Mets take a 2-0 lead over the Cubs on Charlie Neal’s triple. At 5:07, however, they could only moan as Cliff Cook struck out with 2 me

Retro news capsule with vintage commercials. Click here to listen. Headlines: President Kennedy addresses the Peace Corps; Senator Mansfield speaks out on Vietnam; Dr. King meets the press; three convicts escape the Rock; Lee Remick gets money for nothing; the Mets take another beating. #history #JFK #MLK #mets #vietnam

June 11, 1962 - Around the National League, the word on Al Jackson (pictured), the diminutive Mets left-hander, is that his sinker must be respected. If the word had not reached the Houston Colts, they learned it first-hand today as Jackson, facing them for the first time, pitched New York to a 3-1 victory. Keeping his delivery down, Jackson had the frustrated Houston batters hitting the ball into the ground most of the night. With 8,920 fans looking on in Houston, Manager Ca

June 7, 1962 - The New York Mets, a club Manager Casey Stengel (pictured with Roger Craig) today referred to as “not built for long winning streaks,” will try to snap its 17-game losing streak tomorrow at the start of a 3-day, 5-game series with the Chicago Cubs. Jay Hook and Bob Miller will be the starting pitchers in tomorrow’s doubleheader. Bob Moorhead will take the mound in Saturday’s single game. Ray Daviault and Willard Hunter, neither of whom has ever started a major

June 6, 1962 - Another first was “achieved” today as the Mets bowed to the Phillies, 2-0 and 2-1, at Connie Mack Stadium. With this double setback before 8,681 fans, the Mets became the first team in the history of major-league baseball in New York to lose 17 in a row. The 1944 Brooklyn Dodgers dropped 16 straight. Losing the second game was not easy, even for the Mets, who went into the eighth with Al Jackson holding a 1-0 lead over Art Mahaffey. However, a homer by Tony Tay

June 3, 1962 - The San Francisco Giants bade a reluctant farewell to their old Polo Grounds playpen today after scoring their fourth straight victory over the Mets. This, coupled with the defeat of the Dodgers by the Phillies, increased the Giants’ National League lead over Los Angeles to two and a half games. The Mets, meanwhile, came up with a new formula for preserving their losing streak, which now has reached 15 games. Instead of falling behind early and staging futile r

June 1, 1962 - In a triumphant return to the Polo Grounds, where a 43,742-member welcoming committee was gathered, the league-leading Giants outslugged and outlasted the Amazin’ Mets, 9-6, tonight. The first appearance of the Giants at their old home base since Horace Stoneham whisked them off to San Francisco five years ago provoked the same emotional binge that marked the visit of the Dodgers on Wednesday and Thursday. New York’s reactivated National League fans roared them

May 31, 1962 - “That was the most exciting game I ever pitched in my life,” said Sandy Koufax today. This was a rather astonishing statement because he was talking about the victory he scored yesterday for the Dodgers in the opener of the Memorial Day doubleheader against the Mets at the Polo Grounds before a howling mob of 55,704. After all, Koufax pitched before a gathering of 92,706 in a world series game that the Dodgers lost to the White Sox, 1-0. He also once fanned 18

May 30, 1962 - The creaking old Polo Grounds rocked today with the cheers of the largest baseball crowd it has housed in 20 years. Demonstrating New York’s unquenched thirst for the National League baseball it used to know, 55,704 fans paid their way into the historic Harlem horseshoe to watch the Mets play a doubleheader against the Dodgers. Welcomed noisily in their first local appearance since they abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles five years ago, the Dodgers made a trium

May 27, 1962 - Casey Stengel’s Mets lost both ends of a doubleheader to the Giants today in San Francisco. In the opener, marked by a seventh-inning brawl, the Mets bowed to the team they have replaced in New York, 7-1. Then, just as it looked as though the Mets would gain some revenge in the second engagement, Stengel’s cast collapsed under a four-run eighth that gave the Giants the game, 6-5. As for the brawl, the principal characters were Mets Roger Craig and Elio Chacon a

May 25, 1962 - Disaster engulfed the Mets on all fronts tonight as the Dodgers swept the three-game series with a crushing 17-8 triumph before 26,907 in Los Angeles. It was the largest score by a Dodger team since Walter Alston’s cast moved to the West Coast from Brooklyn after the 1957 season. Routing Al Jackson in the third, the Dodgers scored six runs in the inning and added six in the sixth. Maury Wills (pictured) paced the Dodger attack with four hits and three stolen ba

May 23, 1962 - The Mets, from their remote position in ninth place, made a heroic effort tonight in Los Angeles to make their presence felt in the National League pennant race — to no avail. Don Drysdale (right), the Dodgers’ towering right-hander, overpowered them with a four-hitter. Roger Craig (left), a onetime Dodger himself, made a noble bid to match this. But after maintaining a 1-1 tie for seven innings, Roger weakened in the eighth. The Dodgers jammed two runs across

May 20, 1962 - Casey Stengel and his Mets rose today to their finest hour. For the second time in eight days, they crushed the Braves in both ends of a double-header. The scores were 7-6 and 9-6. Both victories were achieved with late-inning rallies. The two triumphs gave the Mets the series, 3-1, before a stunned Milwaukee gathering of 12,672. It gave them a winning streak of three games, their longest to date. And most gratifying of all, they vaulted into eighth place ahead

May 17, 1962 - The New York Mets, who have yet to celebrate their first anniversary as a National League baseball club, will hold their first Old-Timers Day at the Polo Grounds on July 14. The old-timers will be members of the 1951 Giant and Dodger teams, re-enacting the legendary playoff series that ended with Bobby Thomson’s ninth-inning home run (pictured) off Ralph Branca. Leo Durocher, who managed those pennant-winning Giants, also will be on hand. Among the other player

May 9, 1962 - Marv Throneberry, a first baseman, was purchased today by the New York Mets from the Baltimore Orioles. Though the transaction is hardly expected to make a pennant contender of the club, it represents a significant second stage in the development of the new National League team. Throneberry’s acquisition marks a radical departure from the Mets’ previous practice of stocking the club with vintage talent of limited durability but crowd-drawing appeal. Throneberry